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H&M India sales rise 29 percent to Rs 1,109 crore

Fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz’s (H&M) witnessed a slowdown in sales for the fiscal year 2018 reporting sales of Rs 1109 crore ($156.4 million) as against Rs 893 crore it had reported during the last financial year.

H&M India sales rise 29 percent to Rs 1,109 crore - FortuneH&M had reported a revenue increase of 40 percent at Rs 893 crore from the Indian market for FY18.

During the year, H&M has added 12 new stores to take its store count to 39 in the country. The Stockholm-based brand finished the year strongly on the back on strong festive season sales reporting a 43 percent rise to Rs 306 crore during the quarter ended November, double than a year ago period when it grew 20 percent.

Commenting on the results, Karl-Johan Persson, global CEO at H&M said in the statement, “Against a backdrop of rapid changes in the fashion industry, in 2018 we accelerated our transformation to future proof our business, ending a challenging year for the H&M Group and the sector with strong signals that we are on track.

“We were able to outperform a number of markets in the fourth quarter. In several markets, the total growth was driven by both physical stores and online. Among these were China (up 24 percent), India (up 43 percent) and Russia (up 27 percent),” he added.

H&M opened its first store in India in 2015. Since then, the brand has expanded across the country’s metros and now targeting tier 2, 3 cities for growth. H&M aims to open 50 stores across India by 2020 with an expected investment of Rs 700 crore.

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